


The Dragon's Fury

by aeriamamaduck



Series: A Chain of Dragons [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Character Death, Corpses, F/M, Funeral, Loss of Parent(s), Revenge, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-12 22:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7950769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeriamamaduck/pseuds/aeriamamaduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin Gaius Septa wanted revenge. He wanted to destroy. He wanted his enemies dead. </p><p>He fails to see how quickly he begins to lose himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to this: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7950661

Gaius was barely aware of the persistent ache in his throat, having howled like a wild animal as his mother died in his arms. Minerva Saturnius, staring up at him with a deadened gaze, her green eyes reminding him of dry wells.

No, that was not the loving gaze he remembered. He remembered adoration, pride, hurt, anger, and love above all when he thought of _her_ eyes, the eyes he shared. Eyes he’d have to see when he looked into the mirror every day for the rest of his life.

“Gaius.”

Inga’s cool hand on his shoulder drew him out of his thoughts, her touch gentle and careful, as though he would shatter. He looked down at his mother’s face once again.

Dried blood marred her face, having come out of her mouth and nose as she died. Gaius had rushed into the house when he heard the screams, his daughter’s cries the loudest sound. He saw his mother writhing on the floor, Minny wide-eyed and terrified at the bottom of the stairs as a Dunmer started walking towards him. Rage had risen in him, white-hot, and he’d unleashed a lightning spell that sent the Dunmer across the room, and Inga had ended it with an ice spike to her chest.

Then came the worst of it, when Gaius tried to heal his mother as she struggled for breath and she could only shush him softly when he began to sob.

He looked up at Inga, her eyes red and filled with sorrow as she held their small daughter. Horror caught in his throat. He’d completely forgotten his daughter, that she’d seen everything. She was only four and she’d…

Her face was hidden in Inga’s shoulder, and she was still shaking a little. What could he possibly say to her to ease her terror when it seemed that his would never leave him? That this moment would feature in his nightmares forever?

Around them stood the city guards, grim faced and shaken as they beheld the corpse of the Champion of Cyrodiil. Many of them had witnessed Mehrunes Dagon’s assault on the city, seen his mother running alongside the fabled Emperor as he bravely made his way to the Temple to meet his destiny.

How little they knew. Still, what they did know had made them respect Minerva Saturnius enough that her death, her _murder_ , was a devastating blow.

Swallowing, Gaius reached up with a shaking hand to close her eyes, not wanting to search those empty eyes for a person that would no longer be there. The worst part was that in the seconds before she finally died he could see her terror, and he feared he would never forget it. It was still there, etched in what remained of her last, pained grimace.

“The priests of Arkay will take care of her now,” one of the guards said in a quiet, shaky voice. “We will…dispose of the other body.”

Gaius’s gaze snapped to the corpse that lay slumped against the wall of the room, the face frozen in surprise after all the minutes had transpired. The womer had red hair, and one side of her face was cut up and bloodied.

“Who could she be?” Inga asked, rage and confusion simmering in her voice.

“Mythic Dawn,” a soft voice said. Everyone in the room turned to the little girl in Inga’s arms. She raised her head to meet their gazes, utterly terrified but somehow able to answer. “G-grandma said she was hers and ‘Zoga’s friend. Tolisi. I was scared of her, s-so I hid. Then I heard her start talking funny and…she told grandma that the Dawn would have revenge.”

Gaius stopped breathing as he stared at his daughter, and his heartbeat sounded like a repetitive explosion. The Mythic Dawn. Those monsters had survived and they had waited all these years to make his mother pay.

Minny turned to Inga and went on quickly, “Then she said that she already killed grandma. That she was dead when she started drinking her tea.”

Everyone drew in sharp breaths and turned to the tea set on the table. It was the very set Inga’s father had given them for their wedding. His stomach rolling, Gaius realized his mother had been poisoned.

He had no idea how it came to be that he was standing in front of Tolisi’s corpse, gouts of flame flowing from his hands and incinerating the womer until not a part of her was recognizable. His mother’s _friend_. Then strong hands drew him back, holding him by the arms as he panted brokenly and roared out curses, tears streaming down his face again as he slumped towards the ground. Hadn’t he _dreamt_ this? Seen his mother dying in his arms? How could he have just dismissed it, knowing that dreams had placed his father in his mother’s path?

 _It’s my fault,_ he realized, looking over his shoulder at his mother’s body. He hadn’t seen the blood or the tea, but he’d _known_ she was dead in those dreams, yet never the cause.

He realized Inga and Minny were gone. Of course, she would have rushed away before letting their daughter see him in that state, much less incinerating a corpse.

They raised his mother up and carefully placed her on a pallet, covering her face with a sheet. It was over that quickly. Cover up the face of death to make it all pretty for the awaiting audience outside. Minerva Saturnius was dead, and they were to take her to the priests of Arkay for preparation, to safeguard her spirit against dark magicks.

It was a few moments before he heard the first cries of disbelief and horror erupt outside the house. Wailing and sobbing as they begged the gods above to let it all be just a terrible nightmare.

Gaius wished it were so.

He slowly got to his feet, half-aware of the ache in his limbs as he followed the guards bearing his mother’s body out of the house. The sun was setting and the air was cold, numbing his fingertips. A crowd had gathered, most of them in tears as his mother’s body passed them by, towards the Temple District. He trailed after it in a daze, ignoring the pity and sympathy from the sides, forgetting Inga and Minny, putting Tolisi’s corpse out of his mind. His feet felt like lead but somehow he’d made it.

The guards had managed to disperse the worst of the crowd, but Gaius supposed the stricken look on his face had helped. He did not even see in which direction they had taken his mother, but he knew where he wanted to go.

The doors to the Temple of the One were heavy, and for the first time he imagined his father walking through them, the world ending around them, knowing it would be the last time he would ever see the woman he loved.

The Temple was deserted. The statue stood there faithfully, Gaius walking towards it and wondering yet again if his father had been aware of what his decision would cause. Yes, it had saved everyone, but had he foreseen the loneliness Minerva would suffer? The confusion Gaius would go through?

It hit him then, like a hammer on an anvil. His mother was no longer alone. She was at his father’s side at last, released from her grief and pain. It was just him left, alone and grieving after witnessing her death, left with nothing but memories.

And hate.

Hate for the ones who’d begun everything. They had destroyed his father’s home, caused the attack that cost his father his life, and now finished the job by killing the woman who helped with their downfall.

Breathing hard he approached the statue, his father, and said softly, “She’s with you now…Is she happy? Does she know how much I knew? How much I heard? That I could hear her crying in the night, even when she told me it was just me dreaming?”

Yes, she never wanted to admit to him that she was in pain. He had never doubted of her love and pride for him, but he knew grief was a part of her life, even more than for her parents. She would never have wanted to add to his loss, but he was always so aware of it, feeling it as acutely as the trust in his heart for her.

_“Do you miss him?”_

He’d been ten years old, aware even then that the answer was obvious.

 _“Every single day,_ ” she had answered, turning to him with tears in her eyes. _“But missing him hurts me less than knowing you hate me.”_

He fell to his knees at the memory, cursing himself for being such a thoughtless _child_. How could he have ever let her think he _hated_ her? He’d been hurt by the lie about his father, but she had never set out to cause him pain. Yet he’d carried on as if she had, not knowing what the lie had cost her, what pain she held in her heart. His wracked sobs echoed in the Temple, and he leaned his head against the unyielding stone leg as he fought for breath.

“I’m sorry,” he choked out, grasping at the clear memories of his hand in his mother’s like a lifeline. “I’m so sorry…!”

She’d given him everything, her love and understanding, her gentleness, her protection. How could he lose her now, _in this way?_ How was it even fair? Why did it have to happen to her? To him?

Warmth washed over him, a gentle wave, familiar and distinct.

_She was pressing his palm against the stone. “The statue’s magic,” she explained to the three-year-old. “Its blessings will always be with you.”_

_She kissed his forehead on his wedding day. “Your father’s love and blessings are always with you,” she whispered with a smile._

He knelt there and let the echoes of a touch he’d always longed for stay with him. _Father…help me…_


	2. Chapter 2

His mother looked perfect. Immaculate. Peaceful. One would hardly think she’d died suffering.

She looked like a marble statue, expressionless and unmoving. They’d dressed her in a white cotton shift and covered her in a sheet up to her chest. The air around them was heavy with magic, protective spells guarding her soul and body.

The only living beings in the crypt were Gaius and Inga. They had left Minny in the care of the Temple priests, the little girl crying in terror when she realized where they were going. He was standing before the table and looking down at his mother’s face. He touched her cheek carefully, noting that it was as unyielding as the statue. They were one and the same now, both far from him. Gaius clenched his other fist, the magnitude of his loss like a heavy stone threatening to weigh him down. She was always so beautiful but this perfection held no beauty for him now.

Inga sniffled beside him, and he expected her to wrap her arms around him at any time. He must have looked so untouchable for her to recoil at the last moment. Her soft, broken voice echoed in the silence of the crypt. “I just…I want you to know that…I know that place you’re in right now.”

He turned to look at her, remembering that her own mother had been killed when she was thirteen, assassinated when protecting the besieged Jarl of Riften. Her eyes filled with tears, she went on, “And I’m right there with you. I love you, and I promise you’re not alone.”

Gaius turned away from her, unable to feel his connection to her, or even his terrified little girl. It felt as if everything and everyone had been violently severed from him, and he’d been numbed to the pain. He kept staring at his mother, his voice a thin rasp as he said, “…She didn’t deserve this.”

“You’re right. She didn’t.” Inga agreed softly. “Neither did you, darling.” He felt her gentle hand on his shoulder and began to sob, shaking as the little boy in him cried for his mother to open her eyes and get up.

“Gods, I hurt her…I hurt her so badly…” He kept his eyes shut, heart aching with shame at memories of those months after she’d told him everything about who his father was.

The morning after it had happened, Gaius refused to even look at her at breakfast. He’d grown sullen and gave her short answers to her questions, and it was only after he was a man grown that he remembered the agony in her face when he showed his rage so openly.

Life had gone on even if he’d turned his back on the woman who raised and loved him. They continued to go to the Temple for worship, Guy dutifully murmuring every prayer his mother had patiently taught him, reciting them with him as she stroked his forehead before he went to sleep. He’d held on to his anger greedily even when he looked up at the dragon statue, wondering and wondering. Stubbornness, pride, resentment, all of it keeping him from turning and asking her the questions he longed to ask.

Then one spring day it had all come to a head, when it was just the two of them in the Temple and his mother stayed behind, touching the leg of the statue. Gaius had stood near the door, keeping his gaze away from her until he heard a broken sob escape her and she was on her knees, shoulders shaking as she wept bitterly.

He’d been frightened, watching her fall apart like that, but it had loosened his grip on his anger. All he could do was walk over to her and apprehensively put his hand on her shoulder. She immediately took his hand in hers, squeezing hard as she fought for breath.

 _“Do you miss him?”_ he’d asked, his voice his own and not that of the angry child of the past months.

He could not begin to describe the relief in her face and voice when she turned to him and replied, _“Every single day…But missing him hurts me less than knowing you hate me.”_

 _“I don’t hate you,”_ he’d said, the first trickle of shame crawling down his spine. He’d gone down to his knees beside her and let her embrace him, closing his eyes and feeling his heart lighten as she held him.

_“What was he like?”_

Her answers came like a long-held flood. _“He was a brave man. So quiet at first, and then you’d find out just how stubborn he was.”_ She kissed his forehead and stroked his hair. _“He always had his nose in a book, just like a certain young man I know.”_

Gaius tore his shoulder away from Inga, the memory of his mother’s loving smile mercilessly tearing him apart.

But not more so than knowing the ones responsible for everything were still alive. He wanted them dead. Everyone who had set his family on this path. He did not hear Inga behind him, or any other noise in the chamber. Every sound was a thin hum as he looked down at his mother on that wretched table, put there by a woman he had killed far too quickly.

 _They took you,_ he raged in his mind. _They took you both_.

 _How_ was the only question, the only word flooding his thoughts. _How do I keep going? How did we get here? How did I let this happen?_

_How do I make them suffer?_


End file.
